A group of Texas reporters and editors translated the Uvalde shooting report into Spanish

By Jeanette C. Bennet On Jul 22, 2022

The committee came under fire earlier this week after releasing the report only in English, considering Uvalde residents are overwhelmingly Hispanic or Latino and many speak Spanish.

Officials had said it would be weeks before they could share the report in Spanish, but earlier this week a group of Spanish-speaking journalists and editors translated its 77 pages and delivered thousands of copies to Uvalde.

The Austin-based American statesman announced earlier this week that he was releasing the full report in Spanish “as a public service to the Uvalde families and the wider community.”

Manny García, the newspaper’s editor, said in a note to readers that several Spanish-speaking journalists from across the country and Mexico worked together to translate and edit the report.

“A group of Spanish journalists and editors took special care to ensure that the translation was culturally competent and sensitive to the use of words by Mexican and Central American communities,” García wrote.

Nicole Carroll, editor of USA Today and president of the newspaper’s parent company, Gannett, said 10,000 copies of the Spanish version of the report were delivered to Uvalde on Thursday.

“García and other members of the statesman personally delivered copies to grocery stores, the pharmacy, restaurants, funeral homes, churches, the police department and the library. They left a pile at Robb Elementary School next to the memorials where visitors picked up copies,” Carroll wrote in a note to USA Today readers Friday.

Uvalde, which is about 85 miles west of San Antonio, has a predominantly Hispanic or Latino population and half of residents age 5 or older speak a language other than English at home, according to the Census. Desk.

Since the day after the May 24 massacre, authorities have struggled to provide information in Spanish. For days, law enforcement provided public updates only in English and DPS South Texas Regional Director Victor Escalon did not respond to requests from reporters for a statement in Spanish during of a press conference.

Last month, several members of Congress, including Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona and Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, sent a letter to Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw asking that all information about the shooting is provided in Spanish.

“The people of Uvalde have the right to know all the information about the horrific shooting that took place at Robb Elementary, and those whose first language is Spanish cannot continue to be ignored,” said the rep. Norma Torres of California in a statement. “Especially as misinformation and inconsistencies prevail, all members of the community deserve clear and critical public safety updates in their preferred language. English should not automatically be the default – in especially in predominantly Latino communities like Uvalde – and residents shouldn’t be left in the dark by security officials because of a language barrier.”

The committee examining law enforcement’s response to Uvalde did not comment on the release of the Spanish version of the report on Friday – but Texas State Rep. Joe Moody, one of three members of the committee, said Wednesday that it had “always” been their intention to translate the report into Spanish.

The professional translation service hired to do this, Moody tweetedinformed the committee that “it would normally take at least two weeks to complete a project like this, but given the nature of this work, they agreed to rush it and complete it this week”.

Moody said the committee spoke with local officials who were coordinating with Uvalde families to let them know the Spanish translation would not be ready by last week. He said the committee had been informed that the families wanted the English version of the report released without delay.

“We sincerely hope that the translation circulating today, which was not done by professional translators and has not been reviewed by our committee, is completely accurate,” Moody said. tweeted earlier this week.

A group of Texas reporters and editors translated the Uvalde shooting report into Spanish

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